The Public Chamber, a Kremlin advisory panel, has asserted that roughly 500,000 people die annually in Russia from causes directly related to or aggravated by alcohol.
“No matter what people say about it being too deep-rooted in our culture, about it being practically impossible to fight alcoholism in Russia,” Medvedev said in August, “we must recognize that other countries, and you know them yourselves, have been successful in their efforts to address this issue.”
Several experts said they doubted that the government would accomplish much unless its plan was drastically strengthened. They said the most important step would be to raise vodka prices significantly through heavier taxation and the closing of unlicensed distilleries. A half liter of vodka now costs as little as US$2.
They pointed out that in other countries, like France, people drink heavily, but mostly wine and beer, which are seen as less harmful. The trouble here is hard liquor.
In Mytishchi, with a population of 170,000, Poludnitsyn said it was clear that more limits were needed. The drunk tank typically receives a dozen or so people a day, and many more on paydays and weekends.
“It is not a fight that can be waged in a single year,” he said. “It has to be waged over time, over decades.”
Drinking has increased sharply since the Soviet Union’s fall in 1991, though heavily intoxicated people have been somewhat less visible on the streets in recent years, in part because the police do a better job of whisking them away.
One of Russia’s leading alcohol experts, Aleksandr Nemtsov of the Moscow Psychiatric Research Institute, said that little would change unless the Kremlin got serious about shutting down unlicensed distillers, which produce half the vodka consumed in the country and are usually protected by corrupt officials.
“The government does not want to deprive poor people of cheap vodka,” Nemtsov said. “Because it is better for them when people are drunk. You probably know that Catherine the Great said it is easier to rule a drunk public. That is the root of the evil.”
Nemtsov said it would be foolish to constrain beer sales. Given that people are unlikely to spurn alcohol altogether, the government should prefer that they drink beer, he said.
Viktor Zvagelsky, a member of parliament from the governing party, disagreed, saying that young people who started with beer would move up to vodka.
He said the support of Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin would help overcome the alcohol industry’s opposition to more restrictions.
Brewers, many owned by foreign conglomerates, have for years blocked attempts in parliament to apply the same rules to beer as vodka, such as limits on advertising or when and where it can be sold, Zvagelsky said.
“The lobbying by the beer industry has been very strong,” he said.
Outmoded ways of addressing the problem were evident at the drunk tank in Mytishchi. After they sobered up, those who had been brought in were written up: They were told that before being released, they would have to pay a fine.
The amount was 100 rubles (US$3.50), just as it has been since Soviet times.
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